By Don Frost
Copyright 2023
Black activist Al Sharpton Jr. today called for a boycott of all white-owned businesses in protest of a poll that he said indicated there is wide-spread racism among America’s white population.
The poll, conducted by the Washington Post, posed the question to a sampling of white Americans: “Do you think it is okay to be black?”
Results showed that only 53% agreed it was okay to be black, but 26% did not think it was okay and 21% were uncertain.
“So nearly half of all white Americans – 47% – think there’s something wrong with being black,” Sharpton said. “This points to systemic racism in America today.”
He went on to say, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. They are a hate group. . . . the best advice I would give to black people is to get the hell away from white people. Just get the fuck away, because there is no fixing this.”
Newspapers were quick to condemn Sharpton’s racist rant.
“We are not a home to those who espouse racism,” one editor said. “We certainly do not want to provide them with financial support.”
Another editor added, “We cannot and will not provide a forum for those who engage in such rhetoric.”
Adding to the chorus of condemnation, another editor said, “We denounce Sharpton’s comments as racist, hateful, and discriminatory, and we no longer will provide a platform for his activities.”
Pretty outrageous. But none of the above ever happened; it’s pure fiction. Except most of Sharpton’s quotes. Those words were actually spoken by Scott Adams. The editors’ quotes also are real, but they were directed at Adams.
What did happen is a hypothetical imagining of the same poll showing those same numbers, but with the races reversed. In that actual poll 47% of black Americans figured it was absolutely not okay to be white or there was at least something so wrong with being white that the respondents couldn’t say if it was okay to be white or not, and that the question required more thought.
Adams, creator of the “Dilbert” comic strip, was pretty much turned into a nonperson when he objected to what the actual poll bared. There is, however, a significant difference between his case and the fictional Sharpton case: Adams was pilloried and his career scuttled as “liberal” world rallied to condemn him and his views.
In defending the decision to destroy Adams, “liberals” point out that the poll to which he was responding was a figure of speech (they prefer the word “trope”). In other words, the poll was not to be taken literally. Further, they claim the poll posed “a loaded question” tailored by white supremists to get a predictable result.
However, even while poo-pooing the poll, “liberals” do not challenge its results. They do not claim the poll never took place or if it did, the results were invalid. This, in effect, is an admission that the poll was conducted and the results were accurately reported.
If the Washington Post or any other publication were ever stupid enough to conduct such a poll among white Americans, there would be protests, marches, and perhaps riots and looting. And no one – least of all the Al Sharptons of the country – would have had their careers ruined by the cancel culture as Adams was.
Adams agrees. In a subsequent interview he was asked if a black American would have been canceled for saying the same thing he did, but with the races reversed. He laughed. “Not a chance in the world,” he said. “I just wanted as much free speech as a black American.”
commonsense931 